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The moment his inner clock told him it was daylight on the surface, Delphinos jumped up and dashed to his cave’s entrance, to look outside. She’d come. She said she would.
Schools of fish passed by, as the sea world awoke, and he squinted to make out every female form he saw by the palace, but Halie didn’t show. He waited for her until long past noon, his mood oscillating between anger and heartache. Finally, he went for her. There was no room for ego in matters of the heart.
He took the time to pull on a robe and entered the castle the proper way. He might run into her family or servants, and this time he was here as a suitor, so appearances mattered. He smiled and nodded at people who crossed his path, but barely registered their faces, as he made his way to her room.
He reached the floor where the unmated Nereids lived and saw Nerites talking to a maid. She was a pretty thing, lithe but busty, with long, blue hair and big, silver eyes, and she seemed taken with the prince, but Nerites’ posture was stiff. Aphrodite had done a number on him all right; he never noticed how females gaped like halibuts when he was near.
“Nerites.” Delphinos nodded.
“My friend.” Was Nerites avoiding his gaze?
Delphinos’ gut twisted in on itself with a sense of inescapable doom. Nah. He was reading into things. Nerites was always gloomy.
Delphinos picked up his pace. As expected, nobody tried to stop him. They never did. He was Halie’s escort to the surface and seen with her all the time.
He halted outside her door. Should he walk straight in? He would, under normal circumstances, but Hades, today wasn’t normal. If he got through to her, it would be a new beginning.
He rapped his knuckles gently on the wooden surface and listened for her response, but heard nothing. Perhaps she was showering. He tried the door knob, and it turned easily in his grasp. “Halie?” he said as he pushed the door open.
She wasn’t here. Which made sense. What would she be doing in her room, in the middle of the day? She might be anywhere in the palace. As he turned to leave, something caught his eye. A piece of paper on her bed. He approached it cautiously, as if it might attack him, and his hearts stuttered when he saw it was a note, folded in half, his name printed on it in block letters.
He took the paper with trembling hands and read.
Delphinos,
I’m sorry. I had to go. Don’t come for me. We weren’t meant to be in this life. Maybe one day we’ll both be constellations on the same stretch of blue sky.
I won’t forget you again,
Halie.
Had to go? She left? He crumbled the paper in a tight ball, tossed it onto the floor, and stormed out of the room.
He marched to where he last saw Nerites, and caught him on the staircase to the first floor. “Who—?”
“Palaemon,” Nerites replied, as if he’d anticipated the question. “They left before dawn.”
“Is he back yet?”
Nerites nodded. “He’s with Father in the council room.”
“Do you know where he took her?”
“Los Angeles.”
Shit. Seashore for miles. Still, he had a better chance of finding her there than in—say—Australia. “Why there?” he asked.
Nerites gave him a half-shrug. “The witch suggested it.”
Damn that hag. She’d given him nothing but sorrow.